[mdlug-discuss] [Recommendations] Good historical documentaries

[Aaron Kulkis]

Robert Meier wrote:
> Historians,
> 
> A friend of mine is interested in learning about history.
> 
> Can you recommend any accurate historical documentaries that cover.
> 
> o World War I
> o World War II
> o United States
> ?
> 
> For World War II, I named "The World at War"
> (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071075/)
> (http://www.amazon.com/World-War-30th-Anniversary/dp/B0002F6AH0)
> 
> 
> Though I can't remember the title (from grade school?), IIRC,
> NBC produced a B&W series in the 1950s(1960s?) hosted by David Brinkley,
> that covered World War I very well.


> IIRC, most causes leading to war (as well as major battles)
> were aided by black, white, and gray arrows animated to grow
> over a globe of outlined continents from countries to countries
> to reflect the rise of colonial investment, technical trade agreements,
> tariffs, ...
> 
> Can anyone (dis)recommend the Annenberg/CPB project "Biography of America"
> (http://www.learner.org/resources/series123.html)?
> 


In light of the fact that it is now known that the Annenberg
Foundation was hijacked by the extreme left-wing Chicago New
Party unrepentant terrorists Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and
possibly other members of the (literally bomb-throwing) Weather
Underground and other 60's radicals with an overt policy of
twisting anything and everything to fit their political point
of view and propaganda goals, anything coming out of Annenberg
projects is suspect until proven otherwise.

Seeing that this was produced by WGBH, which has a history of
promulgating a political slant which fundamentally opposes the
tenets of liberty as understood in the Declaration of Independance,
and the fact that all wars are political at some level, plus the
fact that NPR/PBS have, over the last 2 decades, shown a pronounced
anti-American/anti-personal-freedom bias and this was produced
only 8 years ago, I would hold it very suspect.

Personally, I don't trust many "general history" works published
in the last 30 years -- overt political bias has overrun academia,
something which college and even high school students not only
routinely complain about these days but have taken to documenting
with recording devices, to such an extent that some professors
are now BANNING recording devices in their classrooms and lecture
halls for being nothing more than cheap political hacks, many
even grading down papers for not espousing politically correct
arguments and point of view.